How many sins does it take to make God the one to blame?

     There’s a collective effort or excuse of conscience at work in our culture today. I’ve heard its influence in the opinions of those I meet many times and in many ways. It could be summarized along the lines of the old adage that says that, “There’s safety in numbers.” I’ve heard a lot of people dismiss Christianity as unreasonable because they feign that God would never condemn all men for sin. That because everyone has sinned of course God will be forgiving. “He understands,” they say. In their minds it’s the very overflow of man’s sin that demands the divine pardon, Romans 3:8. People do not believe that God will judge according to a standard of perfection as the Bible says (Galatians 3:10) because none meet it. They have not learnt the lesson of the law rightly, and have not been brought to Christ by it, Galatians 3:24. Along with this assumption they wrongly make all men worthy of heaven. Of course, if men were innocent before God then the exclusive claims of Christ would be wrong. Since men, however, are not innocent; we all need the Savior. The reason men go to hell is because of their sin. Sin is our problem because God is a good judge and will not excuse it. Sin can only be forgiven by Christ. Christ is God, He is innocent, He is worthy, He is the one to whom restitution is due, and He is the one who willingly gave Himself for His sheep on the cross, 1 Peter 2:24. He is the answer, but men do not want Him. Scripture says in Romans three that no one seeks after God, Romans 3:11. That no one, in and of themselves, is a good person, Romans 3:12. All have sinned and come short of God’s standard. The fact that this is universally true of us all is no, “Get out of jail free card.” We cannot plead a collective innocence. God would be just to condemn us all to hell without exception. That would only be justice.

     If the state was to arrest a murderer there are very few people who would not wish for justice to be served. If everyone in the state was a murderer, it’s then that those same people would expect pardon. It’s this kind of thinking, though rarely voiced, that people tend to take a faulty refuge in before false gods today. They think that there’s safety in numbers with God. They do not believe that God is still infinitely righteous down to the last detail. Because of this, some go so far as to say that God alone is actually at fault for sin, Romans 9:19. They say that since He could stop it that it’s His fault for not doing so. Many pretend as if there are no perpetrators any longer, only victims. Because we’re all sinful, men would like to make God the one to blame for it. In this they intuitively demand a universal pardon for sin. This leads to all manner of idolatry and loose handlings of the holy writings. In other words, because all have broken the law of God, many throw it out as an unreasonable or even antiquated standard. They assume that we misinterpret it if we say that God judges us according to it. We act as if the holiness of God has changed. We change His standards and then judge religion according to our standards. That’s how unreasonable we’ve become in our age, and we expect God to bend to such a plea. I hear this type of argument all the time. They say, “Well, God placed me here. He made the world this way so He must be to blame. Of course He will not condemn me just because I sin!” This is what some would call “blame shifting.” It is an attempt to excuse oneself by unreasonable means. It won’t work.

     No amount of sin among us can excuse any one of us for it. We all know it! In the end we are each individually accountable to God, Hebrews 4:13. Ray Comfort used the following analogy: if a cop was to pull you over on the highway for speeding you cannot say, “There were plenty of cars going faster than I was.” Even though that may be true it doesn’t matter. Once you become accountable to the law you’re accountable. If you break the law you will be held accountable.  

     There is a judgment to come for all of one sort or another. For those still accountable for their sin there is a terrible Day of Judgment coming, Hebrews 9:27; Acts 17:31; Hebrews 4:13. Ignorance to the gospel, contrary to more worldly wisdom, is not a second way to the Father, John 14:6. Each individual will answer for their sinning whether they’ve heard of Jesus Christ or not. No mere man can answer for them. They must answer for their own sin. The entire world could unite before God in an attempt to recreate Him and we’d all be wrong. There is no strength in numbers. We could all unite behind blasphemous songs like the 1985 Michael Jackson hit We are the World and be universally mislead. We could all hold hands around campfires at lakes and profess a love for our all loving god and we would all soon find ourselves holding one another’s hands in the lake of fire. Our sin is our own and there is no strength in numbers. From Adam to us we’ve no one to blame but ourselves.